Good Girl

Cora has been so well-behaved for the first several days of our trip, including her excellent behavior on the airplane.

Wow. What a different child than the one we traveled with in August!

To reward her, Stace took Cora and his Nan to Rugrats, an indoor children's play center.

Its compact layout meant that Mary could easily see all the fun from the cafe.

Cora took the photo of Stace playing, with our bigger camera.

Then, they took a picnic lunch to Ham Hill to enjoy the sunshine - we're having some brilliant weather at the start of our vacation!

Stace and I have tried a few new things with Cora over the last month or so, with her behavior.

When she was rude at a birthday party (after lots of warnings and pre-party prep), we sat her in the corner for a couple of hours. Two days later, more rudeness, more hours in the corner.

It did seem to help, to give Cora something to think about: Mum and Dad are serious about her being kind to people.

We've also started a marble-reward system, by which Cora can "earn" the privilege of watching television. She needs to earn five marbles for a 30-minute program, and eight for a movie. She earns them by being friendly, obedient, kind, etc. She also loses them, for the opposite sorts of behavior.

We've seen this really helping, so far. We've been hearing a lot more "Yes, Daddy!", "Yes please!" and "OK, Mummy!" Not that she's perfect, of course - we had to take two away for rudeness to Nan's coworkers this afternoon when we visited the shop to walk Nan home.